Friday saw a 37% increase in box office revenue over the previous Friday.

Three new films opened this weekend. Two of them landed in the first two spots while the other opened significantly lower.

Opening in first place with an estimated $16.7M is the new CG-animated flick MONSTERS VS. ALIENS. The Paramount/Dreamworks cartoon opened strongly, if not spectacularly (given the genre). The film should end up with a fairly solid haul over the remainder of the weekend.

Opening in second spot is yet another horror film, this time THE HAUNTING IN CONNECTICUT which opened with a decent estimated $9.58M on Friday. Another Lionsgate release, look for this to follow the same tragectory as the other hundred horror films that have opened already in 2009.

Slipping down in to third spot is last Friday's number one film, KNOWING, which earned an estimated $4.6M. Considering the competition from the top 2 films, KNOWING did okay, losing only 48% of its audience which is decent in the blockbuster era.

I LOVE YOU, MAN lands in fourth spot on Friday, earning an estimated $3.97M. Fifth spot goes to DUPLICITY, the Julia Roberts-Clive Owen starrer which managed an estimated $2.3M. Both films, as with KNOWING, had to make room for the two new openers, particularly MONSTERS VS ALIENS which took the heat out of the box office for these three films.

The other new opener for Friday is 12 ROUNDS, which earned an estimated $1.75M. The action-adventure flick directed by one-time action master Renny Harlin failed out of the gate and will likely disappear out of the top 10 shortly.

The estimated returns for the other remaining films for Friday are as follows: RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN ($1.5M), THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT ($0.87M), TAKEN ($0.82M) and WATCHMEN ($0.75M).

The North American box office took in an estimated total of $42.8 million for the whole of Friday 27th March 2009.